I was Mrs Ronnie Biggs and don't regret it | Express Yourself | Comment | Daily Express VIDS I was Mrs Ronnie Biggs and don't regret it HE was behind one of the biggest robberies in Britain. And she was the woman behind him, the loyal wife who went on the run across the world to be with him. 00:00, Sat, Aug 4, 2012 Charmain and Ronnie Biggs in the Sixties [] The story of Charmian Biggs and her Great Train Robber husband Ronnie will be told in a five-part ITV drama this autumn. Charmian, who acted as story consultant, flew to London for the launch party, looking more matronly than gangster’s moll, with her bobbed hair and flowery blouse. Now 74, she says she has no regrets. “There have been some fantastic times as well as very sad ones but that’s life. You have to have the lows to appreciate the highs.” The drama, Mrs Biggs, which stars Gavin & Stacey actress Sheridan Smith and Daniel Mays as Ronnie, is told from Charmian’s perspective.

It starts with her first encounter with Biggs on a London commuter train in 1957, follows their life to the robbery and to their flight to Australia and Ronnie’s eventual desertion to Brazil. I wanted the story to be told truthfully and from the point of view of the family Charmain “I wanted the story to be told truthfully and from the point of view of the family,” says Charmian, who still lives in Australia. “Watching it made me cry on several occasions because it brought the memories back so vividly.” But while the memories are fresh and the loyalty to Ronni strong, the love has ebbed. “When you get to my age you get a lot wiser,” she says, revealing she has no plans to see the 84-year-old who is terminally ill. “My only regret is something I could do nothing about and that is the death of my son.” Nicholas, one of their three sons, died in a car crash aged 10 after Biggs fled to Rio. It is hard to imagine the sensation that the robbery caused in 1963 but it was the gang’s daring, the amount taken and Biggs’s evasion of the law that caused headlines around the world for decades to come.

The robbers hijacked the train taking £2,631,784 – today’s equivalent would be about £44million – and only £343,448 was ever recovered. Driver Jack Mills was hit over the head and injured (it has been said he never fully recovered and died seven years later from leukaemia). At the centre of Biggs’s story was his loyal middle-class wife, Surrey headmaster’s daughter Charmian. “I met Ron Biggs on a train when I was going to work aged 18,” she told TV documentary Australia Story in 2006. “I was travelling up to London Bridge and was swept along with somebody paying me so much attention.” They began a relationship but what she didn’t know was that her 28-year-old boyfriend had a criminal record and was living with a woman in her 40s. Charmian’s family in Reigate shunned her but she married Biggs, who was a builder. They had a baby and wanted to buy a house and so asked for help from a friend, Bruce Reynolds, one of the train robbery masterminds. Biggs was soon recruited into the plan, unbeknown to Charmian.

The day of the heist was Ronnie’s 34th birthday. It was also the day his brother Jack died and Charmian called the police to track Ronnie down, thinking he was tree felling. The call was later to destroy his alibi. THE gang targeted a mail train and as it passed through Leighton Buzzard, Buckinghamshire, Reynolds triggered the attack with the words: “This is it! This is it! This is it!” Charmian says the first she knew of the robbery was when Biggs dumped his £140,000 share in canvas bags on the table. “I was horrified he had endangered our future happiness and the happiness of two little children by participating in it,” she says. “But once it had happened I tried to do the right thing by him.” Biggs was arrested after his fingerprints were found on a bottle of ketchup and other items at the gang’s hideout. Film footage of his trial shows a glamorous Charmian arriving at court. She sobbed as he was sentenced to 30 years. But as the ITV drama reveals she was seeing another man while he was in prison and fell pregnant. She was hoping for a new life but discovered Ronnie was planning an escape from Wandsworth prison.

She terminated the pregnancy and confessed to Ronnie, who replied: “That’s life.” Just 14 months into his sentence he escaped and Charmian got her new life. They chose Australia, settled in Melbourne with Ronnie using the name Terence Furminger, and had a third child. But the dream ended in October 1969 when it was reported that Interpol was looking for the family in Melbourne and Biggs left their home to hide with friends. Charmian recalls: “I got a few hundred yards down my street when all hell let loose and police cars came from everywhere and my car was pulled up and they dragged me out of it and they were waving guns and I was arrested. "When I found out the children had been taken away I was weeping uncontrollably. It was awful.” Five months later Biggs fled to Brazil but she and the children were allowed to stay in Australia. Charmian claimed they had been left broke, saying: “The fortune Ronald received has been spent, most of it had to be paid in bribes and hush money.” She sold her story to a news organisation and bought a house for $19,000.

Sydney-based journalist Frank Thorne frequently met Charmian and says: “We developed a trusted relationship over the years since I moved to Australia in 1994 to become a foreign correspondent for British newspapers following a successful career as a staff reporter, including my first job on the Daily Express. "I found her to be a wellspoken, educated, astute, middle-class English lady with a ready smile and infectious laugh, down-to-earth, an intelligent, dignified woman with tons of self-esteem. I liked her and I felt Charmian warmed to me too.” Meanwhile in Rio, Biggs had had plastic surgery. He worked as a carpenter but lived like a playboy with several Brazilian girlfriends, including dancer Raimunda, 19. It wasn’t hard for Interpol to track him down. Extradition proceedings were started but Biggs revealed he had fathered a child with Raimunda so Brazilian authorities refused extradition and the British police sent to bring him home flew back empty handed. On hearing of the baby Charmian agreed to a divorce. “Although I was terribly hurt and cried bitter tears there was another side to me that didn’t mind being let off the hook,” she says.

She flew to see Ronnie and they remained friends, exchanging letters. Thorne says: “She clearly still carried a torch for Ronnie and, although divorced, still loved him and had never remarried. She admitted she never found anyone who could come close to replacing Ronnie in her affections.” In 1996 Charmian fell ill with cancer. When she recovered Biggs invited her to Rio. “We never stopped talking,” she says. “It felt like when we were first married. I wouldn’t say it was a grand passion reawakened. It was just comfortable and it was friendly. He did jokingly suggest that we should get together again but I told him I wasn’t going to be in any of his publicity stunts. And that was sort of the end of it. "He always managed to persuade me in the early days that he did it for us but as I’ve got older I can see he did it for him.” The final straw came when Biggs wrote his memoirs, detailing his many infidelities. Charmian and his surviving sons Chris and Farley, now in their 40s, were deeply hurt. IN 2001 Biggs gave himself up to the British authorities.

After 13,068 days on the run he was home but in jail. In 2002 he married Raimunda in prison to help son Michael gain British citizenship and in 2009 was released after Michael said his father was dying. In his book he says: “If you want to ask me whether I have any regrets about taking part as one of the train robbers I will answer ‘NO!’ I am proud to have been one of them.” Charmian is in the spotlight once more but will soon be back in Melbourne. Thorne says: “Charmian is not a household name in Australia. She lives a quiet life as a proud, unassuming granny in the house she bought after Ronnie fled. It is still the same, complete with swirling Seventies’ purple wallpaper in the lounge, where she brought up their three children. She told me she had simply done what any loyal wife would do. "She supported the love of her life, the father of her children. She said, ‘All I ever did was stand by my husband, whom I loved.’ “When Ronnie fell ill Charmian told me, ‘It’s very sad. I have thought about what will happen when he dies.

I’ll be shattered. It’ll be as though a piece of me has died too. You know, if I was a young woman and Ron was flirting with me, I’d do it all again.’” Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs dies Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs dies reddit More The Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, whose escape from jail and decades spent on the run in Australia and Brazil made him one of Britain’s most notorious criminals, has died at the age of 84. Biggs had suffered a series of strokes in recent years and was at the time of his death on Wednesday being cared for in a home. Biggs was part of a gang of robbers, masterminded by Bruce Reynolds, that stopped the Glasgow-Euston overnight mail train in 1963 and escaped with £2.6 million ($4.75 million), an amount equivalent to £40 million today. It was the biggest robbery of its time. The self-defined "crook" won worldwide notoriety after escaping Wandsworth prison in London in 1965 and living the high life in Rio de Janeiro and Sydney. SHARE Britain's most famous fugitive: Ronnie Biggs.

Photo: Sergio Moraes He spent 36 years on the run before finally being arrested and jailed in 2001. Released from prison on compassionate grounds in 2009 because of ill health, he was being cared for in a north London nursing home. He had become increasingly frail in recent years after suffering several strokes and died on Wednesday morning in London. He was last seen in public at Reynolds' funeral in March. Advertisement Biggs's place in the annals of crime owed more to his status as a notorious fugitive than his prowess as a villain. His conviction for his part in the robbery and his subsequent escape and high-profile life in Australia then Rio de Janeiro brought him the sort of worldwide notoriety in which he seemed to revel. SHARE Ronnie Biggs with his wife Charmian Biggs in Australia. Photo: Supplied On July 8, 1965, Biggs made a daring escape from Britain's Wandsworth prison just over 12 months into his 30-year sentence for his part in the robbery. While other prisoners created a diversion in the exercise yard, Biggs scaled a wall with a rope ladder and dropped onto a furniture van parked alongside.

SHARE Pin to Pinterest PIN Link When in Rio: Ronnie Biggs participates in Rio de Janeiro's Carnival in 1994. He had arrived in Brazil in 1970 when the country did not have an extradition agreement with Britain. Photo: AP After a brief stopover in Paris for plastic surgery to change his appearance, he travelled to Australia, entering the country on a false passport using an assumed name. For several months he ran a boarding house in Adelaide, using the name Terry King, and in June 1966 his wife Charmian and two children joined him, also on false passports. Photo gallery Ronnie Biggs: A life on the run for the Great Train Robber The family moved first to Perth and then to Melbourne, where Biggs took a job as a foreman carpenter at Tullamarine in the name of Cooke. During this time his son Chris Brent learned about Aussie Rules and even played a year with Fitzroy's under-19s. In 1968 came a breakthrough for his Ronnie Biggs' pursuers. Biggs had formed a business partnership with another fugitive from British justice. His partner was arrested and the trail began to hot up.

SHARE Pin to Pinterest Link "Great Train Robber": Ronnie Biggs leaves Chiswick police station in west London after he was granted release from his prison sentence on compassionate grounds in 2009. Photo: Reuters Ronald Arthur Biggs had been, essentially, a small-time crook who suddenly and unexpectedly found himself in the big league. He was born on August 8, 1929, and his first court appearance came as a 15-year-old in January 1945 - for stealing pencils from Littlewoods, a department store. In 1950, Biggs cut a faintly absurd figure in the robbery of a bookie in Lambeth Road. His contribution was to ask the bookie's wife for her handbag. "When she did not have one, Biggs picked up a vase as though to hit her," reads the court report of the case. Nine convictions and 13 years later he was given the chance to play a bit part in a robbery on an altogether grander scale and, by accepting it, set himself on the path to a lifetime of infamy.

He joined the gang which held up the Royal Mail night train from Glasgow to London on his 34th birthday, August 8, 1963 - the Great Train Robbery. Biggs's role was to find a driver for the train. In fact, the driver he found had problems with the controls and the train's legitimate driver, 57-year-old Jack Mills, was hit with iron bars and forced to move the train. He died seven years later. The hold-up was planned in minute detail and, initially at least, was a spectacular success. The gang shared out the proceeds - Biggs taking around £148,000 - but thereafter things started to go badly wrong, with nearly all the gang members being rounded up by the police. In fact, the hideout was a huge mistake on the part of the gang. The police were telling reporters that they were looking for an isolated farm which had just changed hands and which was 40 kilometress from the scene of the crime. The farm met every one of these requirements. When the gang became aware that the police were hot on their scent, they quit the farm hurriedly, leaving behind scores of tell-tale fingerprints.

It was then but a matter of time before most of the ringleaders were rounded up. Eleven of the robbers got jail sentences ranging from 14 to 30 years. Anthony Delano, who wrote a book about the robbery, told Sky News on Wednesday that Biggs was an "idiot". "He was a small time south London crook who nobody wanted on the team because he was a weak link." But for many years, Biggs made law enforcement look like the idiots. Following his vanishing act from Australia, the trail went cold. Throughout 1970 and 1971, there were reports of sightings in Hong Kong, South Africa and Japan, but there were no firm leads as to Biggs' precise whereabouts. The Australian underworld put it about that he had been killed in a plane crash. In fact, he was building a new life for himself in Brazil. In the sunshine city of Rio de Janeiro the fugitive, now calling himself Michael Haynes, carved out a new career as a jobbing carpenter.

But his peace was shattered on February 1, 1974, when he was tracked down in Rio by the Daily Express reporter Colin MacKenzie - and shortly afterwards by Detective Inspector Jack Slipper of Scotland Yard. But the police's efforts to get Biggs back to Britain were foiled by Brazilian law. Biggs had got his Brazilian lover Raimunda de Castro pregnant, and, as the father of a Brazilian child, had won himself immunity from extradition under Brazilian law. In May 1978, in an interview for the Sunday Times, Biggs told how he learned of the technicality which was to preserve his freedom. "I found myself in a cell, feeling very sour, with a couple of Rio taxi drivers who shared the bedclothes with me - they gave me the sports pages to sleep under. "There I am, all upset, and one of these blokes says to me: 'If you could pretend to have got a Brazilian girl pregnant, bribe or beg one, do anything, but get one, then they can't extradite you.

Only deport you.' "I said, Look, fellas, you're not going to believe this, but.." Michael, his son, was later to earn a different kind of renown in Brazil as a pop star. Raimunda eventually left Biggs, but a lucky star continued to shine over him. In March 1981, he was kidnapped in Rio by a gang of adventurers and smuggled to Barbados by boat. Their aim was to bring him back to Britain. But the Barbados High Court decided the rules governing extradition to Britain had not been properly put before the island's parliament, and Biggs pulled off another Houdini-like escape, being allowed to return to Rio. In 1978, Biggs made a CD, No One is Innocent, with the punk rock group the Sex Pistols. During lean times in Rio, he also raised money by selling T-shirts of himself and entertaining Japanese tourists, posing in pictures with them for cash. But for Biggs, the holiday was over. He suffered his first stroke in 1998 though he recovered to throw a 70th birthday party.

Second and third strokes followed, permanently ending his days of beaches and parties, and starting the chain of events that led to his return to Britain and a life as prisoner. Barely a month back in his home country, a fourth stroke followed and Biggs was moved from prison to a hospital. He was finally granted compassionate release from his prison sentence on August 6 2009, just two days before his 80th birthday. Biggs turned 84 on August 8, the 50th anniversary of the Great Train Robbery. He said at the time he had few regrets about the crime that made him a household name. Biggs, who could not speak and communicated through a spelling board, said: "If you want to ask me if I have any regrets about being one of the train robbers, my answer is, 'No!' "I will go further: I am proud to have been one of them. I am equally happy to be described as the 'tea-boy' or 'The Brain'. "I was there that August night and that is what counts.

I am one of the few witnesses, living or dead, to what was then 'the Crime of the Century'." But he did regret that the train driver was injured. "And he was not the only victim," Biggs said. "The people who paid the heaviest price ... are the families. The families of everyone involved in the Great Train Robbery, and from both sides of the track. "All have paid a price for our collective involvement in the robbery. A very heavy price, in the case of my family. "For that, I do have my regrets." PA Notorious train robber, Ronald Biggs dies aged 84. - 18/12/2013 Notorious train robber, Ronald Biggs dies aged 84. Broadcast: 18/12/2013 Reporter: The first wife of Ronald Biggs talks about her life with one of the Great Train Robbers. Transcript LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The notorious great train robber Ronald Biggs has died in England, aged 84. Biggs was part of a gang that pulled off a multi-million pound heist on a mail train travelling from Glasgow to London in 1963.

He was captured and jailed, but escaped two years later and and fled to Melbourne before ending up in Brazil, living the life of a minor celebrity. In 2001, in poor health, Biggs returned to Britain, gave himself up to authorities and spent eight years behind bars before being released on compassionate grounds. Earlier this year his first wife, Charmian, spoke to the ABC's Australian Story program about her life with Ronnie Biggs. CHARMIAN BRENT, RONNIE BIGGS' WIFE (July, Australian Story): I really trusted him. I had made him promise me when we were married that we would never engage in any criminal activity ever again. I felt that all he really needed was a family life and people to love him and that he had enough brains to get on in the world without resorting to crime. And I firmly believe that I was providing the answer to his prayers, I suppose. So I never suspected for a moment that he had - even when it was all in the news and it was huge that the robbery had happened. ... ... I think his share was about $110,000. And I went into shock.

I felt for days that I was a fly on the wall watching it all happening. ... ... There were 20 people involved in the robbery one way and another, some sort of behind the scenes. Five of them were never caught. REPORTER: In April 1964 at Aylesbury Court, Ronald Biggs was given a sentence of 30 years for his part in the great train robbery. A year later, Biggs escaped from Wandsworth Prison and his made way to Australia. CHARMIAN BRENT: He flew to Australia and in the name of Terence Firminger, New Year's Day, 1966. I didn't come till the June. I loved him very much. And I didn't want the children to grow up without a father. So, the possibility that we were going to go somewhere else in the world together and start life afresh was what I wanted. ... ... I got a few hundred yards down my street when all hell let loose and police cars came from everywhere and my car was pulled up and they dragged me out of it and they were waving guns and goodness knows what and I was arrested. MAN (archive footage): But I hope they don't catch him, myself.

The cops can do what they like to me. I don't care if they - but I hope he gets away. REPORTER: What about the rest of you? You feel the same way? (All agree) CHARMIAN BRENT: Obviously the world media was interested in it and I eventually agreed to sell the story to the Packer organisation, who got me out of the watchhouse in very short order and put all the necessary wheels in motion to get the children back immediately and we were reunited. ... ... I got a few hundred yards down my street when all hell let loose and police cars came from everywhere and my car was pulled up and they dragged me out of it and they were waving guns and goodness knows what and I was arrested. NEWSREADER (archive footage): Ronald Biggs had been living a remarkably quiet and settled life in this noisy, bustling, tourist-crammed city. CHARMIAN BRENT: He was transferred to the foreigners' prison and a Sydney newspaper arranged for me to fly to see him. When I got there, I was shocked to discover that he had a Brazilian girlfriend who was pregnant.

I was in on a prison visit with him when he's telling me, "I want you to divorce me," and I was weeping, so upset, and all of a sudden the doors of where the room where we were were flung open and in came about 20 or 30 press with cameras and the whole bit. JOURNALIST (archive footage, Brazil, 1974): What about the stories that one of the reasons you might stay here is because of your relationship with this girl Raimunda? I mean, are they true? RONNIE BIGGS: Well the fact is that she has lived with me for more than a year. I have a great amount of affection for Raimunda, but nobody would ever replace Charmian and my children will always be part of my life and so will Charmian. CHARMIAN BRENT: There we were in one of those private moments of your personal life that you could possibly have with a whole audience. ... (archive footage, Brazil, 1974): ... He loved his children so much. He wanted them to have things he's never had and have chances that he would never be able to give them any other way.

I can understand why he did it. He did it with the very best motives. ... ... As it happened, because he was to be the father of a Brazilian child, he couldn't be extradited. Eventually, the Brazilian girl had a little boy, called Michael. RONNIE BIGGS (archive footage, Four Corners, 1974): My life, the way it's gone, I'm not disappointed with it, I'm not unhappy about it, the things that have happened since the train robbery. There's been some unhappy times, but there's also been happy times. I might never have come to Brazil, for instance, I might never have gone to Australia. There are a whole lot of things I might not have done had I not been involved in a train robbery. CHARMIAN BRENT: In 1988, he had another stroke. He couldn't speak, he couldn't swallow, so he couldn't eat. And he obviously needed care which his Brazilian-born son couldn't provide for him there, so he did this deal with Sun newspaper in London to go back to England and give himself up. ...

REPORTER (ABC News, May, 2011): After 13,068 days on the run, Ronnie Biggs was finally home. CHARMIAN BRENT: He was taken back to prison, Belmarsh Prison, where he spent his time in the hospital wing. It was only when the question of him being released because he was very ill came up that it sort of hit the media again. MICHAEL BIGGS, BRAZILIAN SON (2009): As a family, we're absolutely delighted. Common sense has prevailed. My father has fortunately been released on compassionate grounds. CHARMIAN BRENT: He was released on compassionate grounds four years ago, just before his 80th birthday, because he looked as if he was about to die, but he managed to hang on. LEIGH SALES: Until today. Criminal Ronnie Biggs has died in England. Search Biggs revelled in robbery notoriety | SBS News Biggs revelled in robbery notoriety Ronnie Biggs was a small-time crook who rode his luck and made it big.

Source: 0 Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs's place in the annals of crime owed more to his status as a notorious fugitive than his prowess as a villain. His conviction for his part in the most celebrated robbery in the history of British crime and his subsequent escape and high-profile life in Australia then Rio de Janeiro brought him the sort of worldwide notoriety in which he seemed to revel. On July 8, 1965, Biggs made a daring escape from Britain's Wandsworth prison just over 12 months into his 30-year sentence for his part in the robbery. While other prisoners created a diversion in the exercise yard, Biggs scaled a wall with a rope ladder and dropped onto a furniture van parked alongside. After a brief stopover in Paris for STG40,000 ($A73,549.69) worth of plastic surgery to change his appearance, he travelled to Australia, entering the country on a false passport using an assumed name. For several months he ran a boarding house in Adelaide, using the name Terry King, and in June 1966 his wife Charmian and two children joined him, also on false passports.

The family moved first to Perth and then to Melbourne, where Biggs took a job as a foreman carpenter at Tullamarine in the name of Cooke. In 1968 came a breakthrough for his pursuers. Biggs had formed a business partnership with another fugitive from British justice. His partner was arrested and the trail began to hot up. But a year later, a security slip allowed the elusive Biggs to slip the net yet again. A Melbourne newspaper published a story that the manhunt was being renewed in the city and the report was taken up by TV. A day before police swooped on his home, Biggs had packed a suitcase and disappeared - without even taking the family. Ronald Arthur Biggs had been, essentially, a small-time crook who suddenly and unexpectedly found himself in the big league. He was born on August 8, 1929, and his first court appearance came as a 15-year-old in January 1945 - for stealing pencils from Littlewoods. In 1950, Biggs cut a faintly absurd figure in the robbery of a bookie in Lambeth Road. His contribution was to ask the bookie's wife for her handbag.

"When she did not have one, Biggs picked up a vase as though to hit her," reads the court report of the case. Nine convictions and 13 years later he was given the chance to play a bit part in a robbery on an altogether grander scale and, by accepting it, set himself on the path to a lifetime of infamy. He joined the gang which held up the Royal Mail night train from Glasgow to London on his 34th birthday, August 8, 1963 - the Great Train Robbery. Biggs's role was to find a driver for the train. In fact, the driver he found had problems with the controls and the train's legitimate driver, 57-year-old Jack Mills, was hit with iron bars and forced to move the train. He died seven years later. The gang seized a cargo of used banknotes worth around STG2.6 million ($A4.78 million), a huge sum at the time. The hold-up was planned in minute detail and, initially at least, was a spectacular success.

The gang shared out the proceeds - Biggs taking around STG148,000 ($A272,133.86) - but thereafter things started to go badly wrong, with nearly all the gang members being rounded up by the police. In fact, the hideout was a huge mistake on the part of the gang. The police were telling reporters that they were looking for an isolated farm which had just changed hands and which was 25 miles from the scene of the crime. The farm met every one of these requirements. When the gang became aware that the police were hot on their scent, they quit the farm hurriedly, leaving behind scores of tell-tale fingerprints. It was then but a matter of time before most of the ringleaders were rounded up. Eleven of the robbers got jail sentences ranging from 14 to 30 years. Anthony Delano, who wrote a book about the robbery, told Sky News on Wednesday that Biggs was an "idiot". "He was a small time south London crook who nobody wanted on the team because he was a weak link." But for many years, Biggs made law enforcement look like the idiots.

Following his vanishing act from Australia, the trail went cold. Throughout 1970 and 1971, there were reports of sightings in Hong Kong, South Africa and Japan, but there were no firm leads as to Biggs's precise whereabouts. The Australian underworld put it about that he had been killed in a plane crash. In fact, he was building a new life for himself in Brazil. In the sunshine city of Rio de Janeiro the fugitive, now calling himself Michael Haynes, carved out a new career as a jobbing carpenter. But his peace was shattered on February 1, 1974, when he was tracked down in Rio by the Daily Express reporter Colin MacKenzie - and shortly afterwards by Detective Inspector Jack Slipper of Scotland Yard. But the police's efforts to get Biggs back to Britain were foiled by Brazilian law. Biggs had got his Brazilian lover Raimunda de Castro pregnant, and, as the father of a Brazilian child, had won himself immunity from extradition under Brazilian law. In May 1978, in an interview for the Sunday Times, Biggs told how he learned of the technicality which was to preserve his freedom.

"I found myself in a cell, feeling very sour, with a couple of Rio taxi drivers who shared the bedclothes with me - they gave me the sports pages to sleep under. "There I am, all upset, and one of these blokes says to me: 'If you could pretend to have got a Brazilian girl pregnant, bribe or beg one, do anything, but get one, then they can't extradite you. Only deport you.' "I said, 'Look, fellas, you're not going to believe this, but..."' Michael, his son, was later to earn a different kind of renown in Brazil as a pop star. Raimunda eventually left Biggs, but a lucky star continued to shine over him. In March 1981, he was kidnapped in Rio by a gang of adventurers and smuggled to Barbados by boat. Their aim was to bring him back to Britain. But the Barbados High Court decided the rules governing extradition to Britain had not been properly put before the island's parliament, and Biggs pulled off another Houdini-like escape, being allowed to return to Rio.

In 1978, Biggs made a CD, No One is Innocent, with the punk rock group the Sex Pistols. During lean times in Rio, he also raised money by selling T-shirts of himself and entertaining Japanese tourists, posing in pictures with them for STG25 ($A45.97) a time. But for Biggs, the holiday was over. He suffered his first stroke in 1998 though he recovered to throw a 70th birthday party. Second and third strokes followed, permanently ending his days of beaches and parties, and starting the chain of events that led to his return to Britain and a life as prisoner. Barely a month back in his home country, a fourth stroke followed and Biggs was moved from prison to a hospital. He was finally granted compassionate release from his prison sentence on August 6 2009, just two days before his 80th birthday. Archive: Ronnie Biggs talks to the Daily Mirror of his new life and loves on the run in Brazil - Mirror Online The Mirror published pictures of Ronnie in Brazil in June 1977 This is the sunny life-style of Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs in South America.

It's a life of blondes in bikinis, gentle beach football, relaxing moments in the shade while a shoeshine boy polishes up his image. Because the Brazilian police have restricted his travel and refused his work permit, Biggs says: I just lie around the beach all day with girls. Read books. Write poetry. Play little boy. "I may even have to resort to living off wealthy women, he laughs. His son, Michael, who will be three in August, saved Biggs from being sent back to Britain to finish thirty year sentence. The law would not permit the expulsion of the father of a Brazilian-born child. Michael's mother, Raimunda, went to Geneva to be a stripper, leaving Biggs bring up the baby. "I don't mind, Briggs says, meaning it. Raimunda had her thing to do. She is a good kid, and she loves her baby. She will back at the end of the year." There is another important woman in Biggs' life . Ursula Sophir, an Argentinian - Danish divorcee. He has known her for three years and stays with her when he is in Rio.

The £4000 Biggs received from the publishers of Piers Paul Read's book on the Great Train Robbery was paid to him through Ursula. "She's been my sheet anchor for the last three years," says Biggs, clearly sincere. "Without her nothing could have happened." Biggs: Doing time as a devoted dad Ronald Biggs and his son Michael live in Sepeteba, a fishing village 40 miles outside Rio de Janeiro. Ha pays £20 a week for a two-storey house he would buy if he had £10,000. In the toilet hangs a photograph of Det. Chief Supt. Jack Slipper and his partner Det. Insp. Peter Jones in their underwear. They suffered from the heat while waiting in vain in Rio to take Biggs back to Britain. Biggs, 48, cannot leave Brazil or he could be extradited to Britain. Then he would have to serve 23 remaining years of his Great Robbery sentence. "Jack's not a bad copper." says Biggs. He was out of his depth here, that's all." The house stands in an acre of sandy garden, shaded by palm trees. He has planted roses by the door.

A one-eyed pup, a striped kitten, a hen and a rooster share the grounds. The house is shared by Elizabeth, one of the women who slip so easily through Biggs's life. She is a stunning 24-year-old blonde Brazilian Industrial designer. "She's my star boarder," says Biggs. "Ula is very liberal." Ula (Ursula) Sophir is Biggs's girl friend. She Is an Argentinian- Danish divorcee with whom Biggs stays when he is in Rio. Biggs spoon-feeds Mike egg and tomato."Eat !" he commands. Mike, in his high chair, eats respectfully. Mike is always well fed - Biggs, the devoted Dad, goes through the local supermarket grabbing vegetables, fruit, meat, pasta, nuts. On the register in minutes is £21. Not a cheap country. But Biggs is not hard-up. Recently, cash flowed in From a West German television documentary and from book publishers. He was NOT paid by the Mirror for this series. Skillful as any mother, Biggs bathes and changes his son, who will be three in August, prattling with him in Portuguese. "I'm trying to teach him English.

Sometimes In the evening I lie with him on his bed. He'll be fresh from his bath, all sweet-smelling. He can pronounce a lot of words real well." What about his other kids — the two boys his now-divorced English wife Charmian bore him and who now live with her In Australia? "That's one of the hardest parts. To think, I might never see them again. "But I could never go back to Charm, even if I got something sorted out with Britain. "We're such different people, now. "Do you know what would keep me in Brazil, no matter what happened? Sex. "You would not believe what I have found out since coming here. And I thought — Charm thought — we knew it all. We knew nothing! "The sex I have with Ula is the best there ever could be. We marvel all the time that it just keeps getting better. But I still love Charm in a way. Love her very much.'' What about the murmurs, then persistent round Scotland Yard, that he was ready to come in from exile and pay the price ? That a longing for green old England would win in the end. "You MUST be joking!" he says wearily. "Go inside again. NEVER.

Not for a MINUTE. "I was ready to go back before when I was at the end of my tether. I thought there was no hope. That was the point of giving up we then. "But instead they nicked me — which wasn't right. I wanted to retire undefeated. "I'd like to go back to England all right. For a visit. I'm an Englishman and I'd like to make an Englishman of my son. "But I would only go as a free man, which I now am. "And an honest one, which I have become." Why I should be pardoned - by Ronald Biggs I believe the time has come to take Biggsie off the hook. I believe I should be forgiven for my part in the Great Train Robbery of 1963 by the British people, through their officials and representatives. Even if it means a Royal Pardon. It is only common sense, While I am in this legal limbo, filling newspapers every time I turn around. I am an embarrassment both to Britain and to Brazil, my adopted — and dearly loved— country. If my case were settled I would drop happily into oblivion. Do the powers that be want me to go on making a mockery of British justice ?

It is certainly not the way I want to spend my life. I have been punished for my prime. Plenty. Only someone who has been a fugitive, as I was for years, could know the torture of uncertainty and insecurity. And the crime did certainly not pay ME. I would be happy to give a detailed account of what happened to every penny I got from the robbery. What point would be served in putting me back in prison for the rest of my life? The main purpose of imprisonment we are often told is rehabilitation. I AM rehabilitated. I am not the man I was when I took part in the robbery. I am not even the man I was six years ago when I first came to Brazil. I have not committed a single criminal act (apart from the "technical" one at tampering with passports) since I escaped from Wandsworth in 1965. How could I possibly benefit from being returned to the criminal environment of a prison? I have not knowingly associated with a criminal in the six years I have been in Brazil. Men in prison behave like animals. I have done so myself. I have seen men almost killed for half an ounce of tobacco.

But the environment in which I live now is full of love and gentleness. If I am to make any hind of amends to the world for the past wrongs I have committed, surely I can make them best by being free to bring up my son as an Englishman as well as a Brazilian. And by continuing the work I have begun here in teaching young Brazilians carpentry and other (honest!) skills they need to make their own lives work. I know that officialdom will say, coldly, that it cannot afford to set a precedent. Why not? The Train Robbery was a unique event. And I am a unique person, just as everyone is in his own eyes. An individual. I believe the time has come to treat me as an individual, Let me come home, free. Most Read Most Recent Most Read Most Recent

Question: What was the name of the Brazilian girl who had a child by Ronnie Biggs allowing him to stay in Brazil
Answer: Raimunda